About Awes0me Beau

Competitive Tuning First

Seasonal events are a big part of what I do, but they aren’t a separate category of “easy” tunes.

The same standards apply.

I tune with competitive driving in mind. That means testing cars against the clock, comparing different build paths, evaluating where the PI is actually producing performance, and making changes based on lap time rather than assumptions.

When the car itself has enough performance within its class, my goal is to produce a setup capable of running top 1% leaderboard times.

That doesn’t mean every car can become a meta car.

It can’t.

There are limits to what a particular chassis, drivetrain, upgrade path, or PI budget can do. Part of tuning seriously is knowing the difference between a setup problem and a car that has simply reached its competitive ceiling.

What I can do is make sure I’m getting as much as possible out of the car I’m given.

If there’s more grip available, I want it.

If the car can carry another few miles per hour through a corner, I want to find out how.

If one upgrade combination is costing lap time compared with another, I want to know.

And if somebody else has found a faster solution, that’s useful information—not something to ignore.

Competitive tuning is an ongoing process of proving yourself wrong.

Grip Is Speed

The majority of my tunes lean toward grip.

Not because horsepower doesn’t matter, and not because every car should handle the same way. Some builds need power. Some need straight-line speed. Some naturally reward a more aggressive setup.

But in most racing situations, the fastest car isn’t necessarily the one with the biggest number under the hood.

It’s the one that allows you to brake confidently, place the car accurately, carry speed through the apex, and get back on the throttle without waiting for the chassis to settle down.

That’s the kind of speed I care about.

A car that gives away a little on the straight but gains it back in every braking zone and every corner can be brutally effective.

More importantly, that performance is repeatable.

A tune shouldn’t require one perfect lap to prove that it works. I want a car that lets a good driver find its limit quickly and then live near that limit consistently.

Predictability matters.

Balance matters.

Rotation matters.

Traction matters.

And when all of those things work together, the lap time usually takes care of itself.

Built for the Weekly Season

Every week, the Festival Playlist creates a new set of restrictions.

A certain manufacturer.

A certain class.

A certain vehicle type.

Road, dirt, cross-country, Trial, championship, Speed Zone, Danger Sign—whatever the game decides to throw at us.

I build and release tunes around that weekly schedule so players can go into the new season with tested options ready to drive.

But the seasonal requirement is usually just the starting point.

If I’m building an A-class car for a championship, I still want it to be a genuinely good A-class car.

If I’m tuning something for the Trial, I don’t want the benchmark to be “good enough to beat the AI.”

I want to know what happens when you take it into Rivals.

I want to know how it compares with other cars in the class.

I want to know whether it still works when the seasonal event is over and there’s no longer a reward attached to driving it.

Some of the cars I discover through seasonal restrictions turn out to be legitimately competitive builds. Others become excellent alternatives to the obvious meta choices. Some simply turn into cars that are much better than anyone expected them to be.

That’s one of my favorite parts of doing this every week.

The Playlist forces me to spend time with cars I might never have chosen on my own.

Sometimes they surprise me.

Tested, Not Assumed

There’s a difference between finishing a tune and proving one.

I spend a lot of time testing.

That means repeated laps. Different tracks. Different upgrade combinations. Adjustments that work. Adjustments that absolutely do not work. Comparisons against my previous versions. Comparisons against other competitive tunes.

Sometimes a change feels better and turns out to be slower.

Sometimes a car feels almost identical and suddenly finds several tenths.

Sometimes I finish what I think is the final version, learn something new a week later, and realize I can make it faster.

When that happens, I rebuild it.

I don’t have much attachment to being right the first time.

I care about the result.

That also means I’m comfortable telling people when one of my tunes isn’t the fastest option.

If I release several cars for the same event and one is clearly quicker, I’ll say so.

If another is slightly slower but easier to drive, that matters too.

If a car is enjoyable but fundamentally off-meta, there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.

The point of testing isn’t to prove that every tune I make is amazing.

The point is to find out exactly what it is.

Leaderboards Tell the Truth

One of the reasons I enjoy competitive tuning is that eventually the stopwatch gets a vote.

You can argue about horsepower.

You can argue about drivetrain.

You can argue about whether a car “feels” faster.

The leaderboard is less interested in the argument.

That’s why Rivals is such an important part of how I think about tuning.

A strong leaderboard tune has to work across an entire lap. It has to survive braking zones, direction changes, corner exits, imperfect surfaces, and all the small places where a car can quietly lose time.

Finding that time is what keeps tuning interesting.

Sometimes it’s a major build change.

More often, it’s a collection of small improvements.

A little more speed here.

A little more stability there.

A better exit from one corner that changes the approach to the next.

Do that often enough and the gap starts disappearing.

When the underlying car is competitive enough, those are the tunes I want capable of reaching the top 1%.

Not because a percentile badge magically makes a tune good, but because it gives the work a measurable standard.

The Driver Still Matters

There is no tune that turns every player into the same driver.

Driving style matters.

Assists matter.

Controller settings matter.

The track matters.

And a top-level car still has to be driven well.

My job is to make sure the tune isn’t the thing holding you back.

I want the car to communicate clearly.

When the front end is going to grip, you should know it.

When the rear starts to rotate, it should feel progressive rather than random.

When you brake hard, the car should help you attack the corner instead of forcing you to survive it.

That matters at every skill level.

For a competitive driver, predictability creates the confidence needed to chase hundredths.

For somebody just trying to finish the Trial, that same predictability makes the car easier to control.

Those two goals aren’t as different as they sound.

A well-balanced car is useful to both.

Why People Keep Coming Back

I’ve been publicly sharing tunes since the Forza Horizon 5 era, and over time the community around them has become one of the most rewarding parts of doing this.

My tunes have been independently tested alongside builds from other established tuners.

Players have recommended them to people struggling with weekly events.

Others use my Trial tunes even though they normally prefer building their own cars.

Some have taken cars I originally released for a seasonal championship into online racing and discovered that they were competitive there too.

And years after some of my FH5 tunes were originally published, people still occasionally go looking for them.

That means more to me than download numbers.

Forza has no shortage of tunes.

Anybody can upload one.

Trust comes from what happens afterward.

Does the car perform?

Does it behave the way the description said it would?

Can you take it somewhere more demanding than the event it was originally built for?

Can you come back next week and expect the same standard again?

That consistency is what I try to earn.

One tune at a time.

There Are Exceptions

Not every build needs to become a leaderboard car.

Every so often the Festival Playlist asks for something wonderfully stupid.

A huge jump.

A very specific stunt.

A car that only needs to accomplish one extremely narrow objective.

I have absolutely made tunes whose entire reason for existing was to hit a seasonal Danger Sign with as much speed as physically possible.

Those are disposable.

I make no apologies.

Sometimes you’re developing a balanced racing car.

Sometimes you’re building a missile with license plates.

Knowing which problem you’re trying to solve is part of tuning too.

What I Want From Every Tune

The cars change every week.

The restrictions change.

The meta changes.

My understanding of the game keeps changing.

The standard doesn’t.

I want to understand the car before I publish it.

I want to know where it’s strong.

I want to know where it compromises.

I want to know how fast it actually is.

And I want the person downloading it to get exactly the kind of car I said they were getting.

For a seasonal build, that means something tested and ready when the new week begins.

For a competitive build, that means chasing every bit of usable performance I can find.

For the right car, it means building something capable of fighting for top 1% leaderboard times.

And through all of it, the philosophy stays pretty simple:

Grip creates confidence.

Confidence lets you push.

And when you can push, you find speed.

Build it.

Test it.

Race it.

Compare it.

Then make it better.